Classic French Recipes

Over 90 years ago, Ginette Mathiot, a French food writer and cookbook author who was awarded the National Order of the Legion of Honor, France’s highest award of merit, for her efforts in promoting French culture and cuisine, published Je Sais Cuisine (I Know How to Cook). It has remained in print since, selling over five million copies and becoming the go-to for three generations of French home chefs.

Now Phaidon Press has released Classic French Recipes with a preface by pastry chef, cook, and writer David Lebovitz, an American who has resided in Paris for two decades. Food writer Keda Black wrote the book’s introduction and also expanded on Mathiot’s tips on menu planning, food shopping, and kitchen organization, and also provides advice on how to create a balanced meal the French way.

A glossary defines such French ingredients as mirepoix, diced vegetables and herbs fried until brown and used to intensify the flavor of gravies and sauces and duxelles, a mixture of chopped mushrooms, shallots, and parsley. Black also explains French cooking terms and equipment like macedoine—a mixture of vegetables or fruit cut into dice, and Charlotte mold, which is a deep circular mold used for many French cakes and puddings.

The original book contained almost 2000 recipes but for this edition there are over 170, all of them created by Mathiot. Many are accompanied by 148 colorful illustrations that take up an entire page so the home cook knows what the dish should look like. In a nod to modern dietary restrictions, symbols denote gluten, dairy, and nut-free, vegan, and vegetarian as well as time constraints—five ingredients or fewer and 30 minutes or less—and ease: one pot.

“Cuisine fait maisson is the French version of cozy, ‘comfort’ cooking, and these are the time-honored dishes that French people enjoy,” writes Lebovitz. “Ask even the most esteemed multi-starred chef who the best they know is, and without hesitation, they’ll say, ‘Ma grand-mère.’ You may not be a French grandmother (or grandfather—French men cook, too!), but with this book, no matter who or where you are, you’ll not only see how easy it is to make the same traditional dishes at home, but you’ll also taste how delicious these classic French dishes are.”

There are a wide range of recipes from those that will be familiar to anyone who has watched a movie about Julia Child or dined in a French restaurant, dishes such as such as Coq au Vin (chicken in wine) and Quiche Lorraine.

Others may be less recognizable like Mont Blanc, a pretty dessert with pureed chestnuts and meringue and Crosets Savoyards, a pasta common in the Savoie region in the Northern Alps shaped like tiny squares served with cheese and butter.

And then there are recipes using ingredients not common in our kitchens nor that easy to source outside of a large city—kidneys, pigeons, quail, blood sausage, pike, red mullet, and skate.

It’s easy to see why the original book has been in print since 1932. The recipes are designed to be easily followed (Mathiot studied to be a teacher at the Paris Training School of Homemaking because her father wouldn’t let her become a teacher) and this book, as well as her subsequent cookbooks are like primers, making cooking accessible to all.